There are quite a few different varieties of flowers that grow on Jaywick Sands but the one that really inspired me as we walked along the beach in the gentle breeze was an array of beach roses. Their colour and shape are fantastic. I made a sketch of them but also took a photograph to check that I had the perspective correct: I was looking down on them and the horizon line of the sea beyond was just in my eye view.

I used pastels to complete this painting, using a Sennelier card of a dark green. I made a line drawing of the shapes on my card and then started by painting in the blooms using a soft pastel. Soft pastels are my favourite type, they seem to suit my rather heavy handed approach to painting. As pastel is a tactile medium, you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty, so always keep enough water and a cloth at hand to rinse your hands as you work, so you do not transfer one colour to another colour pastel and leave residue of your previous colour on the pastel.

I then used a variety of greens to paint in the leaves. Sand is always a pleasure to paint: pinks, yellows, whites, light green, I blended the colour on the card with my finger.

For the sea in the background I used five different blues, ranging from sea green to dark blue. If you do go for a walk on this beach look out for the beach roses, mallows and beach poppies, all in abundance in all their glory.